HISTORY STARTS NOW
by d0rene
Summary: Prequel to Jericho. Emily has to find herself after losing the last two people she loves.


_**HISTORY STARTS NOW** _

_. . . . . _

_Love one another, but make not a bond of love:_

_Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. _

_Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. _

_Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. _

_Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, _

_Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music._

_Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. _

_For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts._

_And stand together yet not too near together:_

_For the pillars of the temple stand apart, _

_And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow._

_. . . . . . _

_Khalil Gibran, "__On Marriage," __The Prophet_

Marriage is one of the foundations society is built on. Our expectations for it now are to be one man, one woman, but it is so much more than that. A marriage turns two people into a single entity that interacts with the people around it. They become stronger and more cohesive as their personalities wear away at each other to find a fit. Each person loses a little bit to gain something. Sometimes it works and they find that balance that allows them to be themselves inside of a partnership, other times it becomes an epic battleground that ultimately tears them apart.

Everyone emphasizes the romantic union but two separate people do not stop relating to the people around them. They do not stop being individuals with different likes and dislikes and different needs and, unfortunately, they also do not stop being attracted to or liking other people. The main object of marriage is to raise children because children deserve two parents with two extended families to help with the emotional and financial burden of raising a child. Children enrich the lives of those connected to them, indeed they are the true wealth of a society.

Jake and Em had been wearing away at each other for years. Emily had started attending holiday dinners at the Green house at 11, finding her own place by helping Gail in the kitchen and then staying for clean up and the after party, a warm and welcome tradition. It had been Gail who took her to get her prom dress and helped pick the carnation for Jake when Em had saved enough money working after school at Gracie's Market. Jake's dad had helped Emily fix the leak under the kitchen sink when the landlord wouldn't, always being there to offer a hand - not doing it for her but helping her and Chris find the way. She and Jake had been inseparable, an integral part of each other's lives for so long. Sometimes it had been hard to figure out where Jake ended and she began which had been the biggest part of their problems.

Even though Jonah and Mary had never gotten married, he had still tried to keep on eye out for his kids when he had time. Jake had been the one to go to Jonah when Emily's mom had gotten too deeply involved with the guy from Texas. Things had gotten bad and while mom was no longer able to handle the situation, she refused to admit it. Jonah had stepped in and cleaned house, Em had never seen Jonah so furious and she had never been so grateful to him. Gus had left battered and bruised and after Jonah had talked to her mom she had straightened up for almost a year. Emily and Chris had a stable home before Mom fell off the wagon again, life was just too difficult for her to stand on her own. While there had been other guys, there had been no one as bad as Gus. Jake and the Greens had been there for her when her mom had overdosed for the final time. She had really needed Jake then and he needed to be needed. At the age of 18 she had taken on custody of Chris.

Unfortunately, Jake had opened a door by going to talk to Jonah. With the landing strip at the compound, Jonah had uses for someone who could operate a plane. Maybe they weren't all legal but it still gave Jake an opportunity to gain experience flying.

Jake learned a lot about the practical side of mechanics from Jonah, shortcuts they would never teach you in school. Jonah was as brilliant at working a deal and handling the people at the compound as he was with a wrench, and Jake absorbed those lessons like a sponge. Em felt responsible for Jake finding that door but it was Jake who had jumped through it, eager for the challenge and thrum of the knife edge of life Jonah offered. Those moments often ended in hefty cash payouts when Jonah was flush. When that edge finally pushed Jake into jail, Emily was the one who found the bail money .

They had both been so wild back then, looking for a their own answers and hurting with their personal growing pains. They had served as a crutch for each other, multiple roles - lover, sibling, friend, even parent and child at times. Dealing with each other's faults as well as their good points.

Em knew she had her problems. She could be scatter-brained and indecisive, she was impatient and had a short fuse. After years of dealing with her mom's problems she wanted security and stability, but it had also made her fear infidelity and needing someone too much. Jake's faults were his fear of fully committing to anything and his genuine love and interest in the people around him. He never looked before he leaped. He would end up getting involved in relationships that would start out by him feeling someone needed him and would escalate until suddenly the girl expected more than he had been prepared to give. He never understood how it happened, but he always ended up coming back to her and wanting her to fix it. She would be hurt, but she'd forgive him and deal with it. She had always loved him, until it was combined with losing Chris, she hadn't been able to forgive that.

It had happened after they had finally set a date. The church was booked and Gail and her aunt had been helping her with the arrangements and invitations. She should have known everything was going too well. Jonah was going to show up to give her away and had even offered to cover some of the expenses - then, out of the blue, Tammy had showed up looking for Jake and claiming she was pregnant. Emily's world fell in, she had thought Jake was fully committed. They had even rented a house and been moving in. The night Tammy showed up they had a massive blow up. He had tried to claim the night with Tammy was an accident . . . . it just happened. The screaming match between them had her shaking with bad memories and the thought of where their future together was headed. Jake had disappeared that night and nobody had been able to find him for three days. It was only after she had lost Chris the night after that she learned Jake and Jonah had been involved in that, too.

She held Jake responsible for Chris's death at the time and it had led to another huge fight when she caught up with him again. She had said a lot of things, maybe they were true, but she knew he had loved Chris as much as she did. Possibly if the fight hadn't occurred Jake would have been there to stop Chris or at least pull him back from the edge. Over time she had to own up to her part in his death. If she had put her foot down more about Jonah, if she had been more aware of what was going on over at the Cafferty's… if she hadn't been so young… But she was devastated at losing her younger brother and she hung the blame squarely on Jake whether he deserved all of it or not. She had never been able to stay mad at him very long before, but now it served as an outlet for her grief at losing Chris. It was painful to see Chris missing from Jericho's present and when it turned out Tammy wasn't pregnant Jake had split and left everything behind. She had stayed in Jericho long enough to cancel the arrangements and take back anything she could get a refund for. Gail and Johnston had helped as much as they could. Both the Greens made it clear that she was still family regardless of what had happened between her and Jake, but it was very tense being around them and in Jericho. His grandfather almost cried every time he saw her and she couldn't take his pain on top of her own.

Emily decided she was through drifting, expecting other people to have the answers she needed. She had to figure out who she was and start standing on her own and she would never be able to do that here among all the people who wouldn't let go of the Emily of the past and where she was still living in Jake's shadow. It was time to move on.

She looked into scholarships in Wichita and first chose teaching because there was a call for it, then suddenly found a passion she hadn't been aware of before. She had always loved history but in some way she discovered a connection to Chris. Listening to E.J.'s stories as she grew up about the war and his descriptions of the founding fathers had always helped her to understand the connection between the past and the future. Seeing how past events impacted the current ones inspired her and she wanted to pass that inspiration on to young people. Maybe wake them up to the future that so many people had made sacrifices to give them. If Chris had someone get him excited in school his life might have taken a different path. If she couldn't help Chris anymore she would find someone whom she could. Teaching was something she had found on her own, something neither the Greens or her father had been a part of. It was something she could give back and be her contribution to the world.

She'd never had Jake's easy way with people and it was hard that first year. She had stayed mainly to herself. Heartsick and mourning Chris, her mom, and missing the familiarity of Jericho she finally started living outside of Jake's shadow and coming to terms with the past. Becoming more balanced and serene. She learned that she was capable of taking care of herself. That getting answers simply required that you kept asking the same question till you got the answer that worked for you. Contrary to popular belief, different people often required different solutions.

She had been pretty well established in Wichita by the time her aunt called to tell her about E.J. passing away. He had been someone she considered a grandfather and she now regretted not taking the time to see him before she left, mourning his loss and wanting to offer her support to Gail and Johnston for his loss. But she went braced to see Jake, …braced for another fight.

Johnston couldn't believe it was her when he hugged her and suddenly Emily felt the tension fall away, she felt like she was home again. Johnston thought how odd it was to see her without Jake, to look around and not have him in the room somewhere. Nobody understood the battles he had fought over trying to discipline that kid, if he pissed Jake off he had Emily mad at him, too. His dad would just go expressionless and quiet, no matter how right Johnston had been and what stunt Jake had pulled.

"Where's the stringy ponytail and the cutoff jeans? Do you still carry those little vice grips with the screw driver in the handle in your back pocket?," he teased lightly.

"If I recall, Mr. Green," she laughed back, "it was you who gave me those vice grips and they are in the glove box in the car. They are still one of the most valuable items I own!"

"Our little caterpillar has changed into a butterfly, these poor boys don't stand a chance do they?" Johnston ljoked.

"You sound exactly like your father!" Emily said as her eyes filled.

"I do, don't I? I guess everybody who knew him will always carry a little bit of him with them won't they?" Johnston said as his eyes tried to fill.

"He touched a lot of people, and I hate to see him go but I know he was getting up there. What happened?" Em asked.

"His heart. The funny thing is he had just been in for a checkup. He went fishing one afternoon and when he didn't make the regular call at Bailey's they started looking for him. He just fell asleep." Johnston managed a smile.

"Fishing? Leave it to E.J. - I guess he left doing what he loved, I'm sure he is somewhere having a good laugh with his friends."

"Don't forget the Kentucky bourbon. And it will be a tall glass."

"Maybe not, I always heard Edith wouldn't put up with that. But then it is heaven - you know he'll push for both."

"If he had her I don't think he'd need it - he started when he lost her." Johnston smiled. "He always said he could hear her yelling in his ear every time he started twisting a cap off. Hearing her yell was better than not hearing her at all. Mom was something. You always knew where you stood with her. At least they are together again. He really took it hard when you guys broke up, Em. He always swore you and Jake would get back together."

"Huh, that will never happen!" Em rolled her eyes. Suddenly an echo of a chuckle floated back from the past, "Never say never, Emmy girl. That's a slap in God's face and he will take you up on that challenge!" E.J.'s memory faded back as she backtracked smartly. "I mean, that is not very likely," she gulped.

Johnston smiled at her, no doubt hearing the same voice she did. It had been an automatic response when someone would say the word, "Never," to his dad. He touched her gently on the shoulder as he turned to thank the next person waiting to offer their condolences. Emily then moved down the line to Gail.

"Honey, you look so grown up. College is really agreeing with you." Gail embraced her warmly. "You're going to stop by the house afterward aren't you? Just for a little while, I could really use the help." Emily had always assembled the meat and relish trays and helped with getting things out and cleaning up because she knew where everything went and how to put it back. It was a standard joke within the family, though, that she wasn't allowed around the stove for the safety of the family.

"Nobody's heard from Jake, we have no idea where to find him to let him know what happened. We still feel you are one of our kids, Em. I hope you don't hold him against us. E.J. would have wanted you there."

"I would love to Gail, but I probably wouldn't be able to stay very long." Trust Gail to always know the right thing to say to make Emily feel needed.

The little while turned into a late night filled with people she had known for years. College had given her a different perspective. The really good things seemed better and some of the people she had had problems with took on a different cast. They seemed so much less of a threat to her. She had developed the strength to understand that their opinions did not affect her. Everyone spent the night remembering E.J. and the crazy stunts and practical jokes he had played on all of them and Emily realized how much she had missed home. She was happy to return to college knowing there were still people who cared about her and a place she belonged in Jericho

She first met Roger during a civil rights rally at the end of her second year. She found it hard to believe he would be interested in her. He was older and she was attracted to his smooth charming confidence and his easy authoritive way with people. Another guy who genuinely cared about the people around him, but he had more experience on knowing the correct channels to get things done. He was who she wanted to be and she set out to learn those traits. Being a Business Major, he taught her better ways to manage her money and he moved in an entirely different social circle. He encouraged her to think about politics, listening to her, making her think, and getting involved with her in groups they both felt strongly about. There were actual dates to restaurants instead of grabbing a case of beer and a couple of movies and heading home or hitting a party down by the river where the only designer labels were Levi and Target and the only issues people were interested in was how long the drinks would hold out. She found the stability she'd been looking for, finally. She was strong enough to be able to say what she wanted and he respected her enough to listen. With Jake, she had always been the co-conspirator, the partner, but with Roger, suddenly someone wanted to protect her. Roger was a warm sunny day after her storms with Jake. She felt safe and cared for, not dancing a tightrope in the wind. Though she had known Jake for so long there had always been that edge of surprise that had never worn off. Losing Chris had just added another element to the equation that had made it unbearable. But even with Roger she had disagreements, too, in the beginning. Emily had demanded that he quit a committee because it meant working with an ex-girlfriend that Emily thought still had feelings for him.

"You do not own me, Emily Sullivan, just as I don't own you. I refuse to live in a vacuum because of your insecurities. Yeah, I used to go out with Kate a year ago, but we broke up for a lot of reasons that I am not going to go into with you right now. I still respect her a lot and we were both picked for this group. Love and commitment are not simply about sex, Em. I know you have had problems in the past, but if we are going to last and I am not committed enough to be monogamous now what makes you think I will be down the road? You don't get past temptation by avoiding it, it's by being able to walk past it when it tries to stop you. There is always going to be some temptation and it will only get worse over time after the newness between us wears off. It means we also have to share the same core values and beliefs. Even if the love and feelings are there, it takes a lot of work to keep it going. If the worst ever happened between the two of us, I want you to know that I don't intend to lose your friendship because the relationship fell apart. And I would rather the relationship fell apart before we had kids to consider."

"Em, my dad is one of the people I respect most in the world. Him and mom separated back when I was 8. A lot of people who know my parents and think they have a great marriage don't know that. Mom thought she had married dad too young and met someone else and moved out. My grandparents and most of his friends browbeat him constantly about how he couldn't put up with the way mom was acting. I remember more than they realize. My dad just kept his mouth shut and carried on. He was fully committed to his family and he put me and my brother first, then trying to meet both Mom's needs and his own. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't a saint. After the first six months he did start dating because he knew if she did finalize the divorce he would have to get on with his life - but Mom came back because eventually she realized that being with us was where she belonged. They are stronger for that separation. I learned at a very early age, Em, family comes first. That level of commitment means that you don't face anything separately, you face it together. True love is not about how cool you think that person is, it is about who **you** are with that person. When you fall in love, someone gives you the gift of a small piece of yourself, but you can't lose the rest of yourself trying to hang onto that one small piece. I am really starting to care about you, but this is one rule that is nonnegotiable. I won't set limits on you and I won't allow you to set them on me. "

"Stepping outside a relationship is a symptom of a problem within it. I don't expect you to put up with that and I know I won't, but being constantly afraid of it happening is more likely to drive us apart."

"I am going to sleep back at my place tonight because I think we both need to get some perspective. If you can't handle that rule than we need to drop back to being just friends." Roger had stood up and put his coat on and walked firmly out the door.

Emily cried the first two hours after he left but then his message started sinking in and made her start evaluating not only her and Roger, but also her and Jake. It was not only Jake who had not been mature enough for their relationship. She had been so concerned about what everyone else had been saying and her own pain that she had taken it out on him, not trying to see it from his point of view. Jake didn't do well when people got mad at him and he often never thought much beyond the end of his nose, it had never been one of his strong points to deal with his screw ups. Maybe it was time she started growing up, too.

Roger wanted to take care of her, he made the decisions and sheltered her. Em no longer changed her own oil, Roger didn't know how and didn't think it was necessary. That's what you paid people for. All she had to do was to be poised and charming. Roger liked to travel and he pulled Em along with him and introduced her to exotic locations, exciting people, and new experiences. He threw himself into life and helped her do the same. Emily slowly built a polished façade over who she had been before, replacing the disheveled mismatched outsider with who she wanted to be and burying her pain in the past. She had a life away from Jericho but why did that make Jericho's pull feel that much stronger?

The history she was studying now made her realize that a large part of who you are is where you come from. You cannot be at peace until you understand your past and she started realizing just how much of her was built from Jericho. She didn't want to lose the place that connected her to the people she had loved in the past, and after a few years the places Chris had been brought comfort instead of pain. However, she knew she could never release the hard knot of rage she felt toward Jake because if she did it could cut off what was slowly growing between her and Roger. Roger's honesty and insights still amazed her sometimes. She had been lucky to have had both of them in her life.

When an opening came up at Jericho's high school she grabbed it, but Roger wasn't through with his schooling so Em had moved back on her own with Roger visiting occasionally on weekends. When he brought up the idea of looking into financing a house instead of paying out rent she had been excited. Life was so much better than when she was growing up..

At a school function she met a middle school teacher her age who had grown up in New Bern. She felt an instant powerful connection to Heather Lisinsky. They both had the same passion for teaching and she was the most aggressively honest person Emily had ever met outside of Gail Green. Since they were both alone a lot they started hanging out together. Since they were both alone a lot it wasn't long before Heather started staying in a room in Em's house so she could start saving to get a small house of her own on Roger's advice. It provided them both with more security and Heather helped on some of the utilities. She'd been a lot more sheltered than Emily had ever been and it ignited a fierce protective instinct in Emily.

Heather had Jonah's knack with tools and knew a lot of carpentry skills beside. Growing up with a single dad and three protective older brothers had made being a tomboy mandatory at her house. She didn't look down on somebody who was willing to get dirty to get work done and she genuinely cared about her students.

When Heather was enraged because she couldn't get authorization to do field trips away from school, Emily was the one she complained to.

"All Mr. O'Leary says is, "We don't have the money, it will take away from the school day." All they look at is the reasons we can't do it! The kids are getting shortchanged by not being able to experience some of the wonderful things we have in this area. The principal won't even consider it." Heather raged.

"The school budget is tight right now, Heather. He's trying to juggle so many different balls and he just doesn't have the time or funding to be able to make everybody happy. Exactly how important is this to you?"

"Very important!" Heather asserted.

"Right, then." Emily's icy blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "We start looking outside the rules. Never let rules confine you in a box. We don't want to break them, but there is always a way around it if you look hard enough. If something really matters to you, Heather, then you start brainstorming and keep looking and eventually the answer will show up." Emily smiled at hearing E.J.'s words coming out of her mouth. She had received the exact speech in high school from him. A river tries to move an obstacle in it's way. If it can't, it will rise above it or go around it. Emily had spent a lot of time learning to be a river. "You are willing to put your own resources into this right? Paying for them to get in could come out of our pockets."

"Oh absolutely!" Heather said, her eyes brightening with hope, her sharp ears picking up the "our."

"We can start with contacting the school board…. how fast do you need this to happen?" Emily asked still deep in thought.

"I just learned that New Bern has a traveling art display there until the 20th. It's the 5th now, there is no way we can be able to do anything if we have to wait on the school board!" Heather wailed.

"We still need to take that approach for future trips," Emily said thoughtfully. "However for this one we could get to work calling parents and arranging to get permission slips out and signed. We have to make sure they understand it is not associated with the school because the school won't stand for the liability without advance notice. We might try to set up an extracurricular trip on a weekend when it won't affect school and maybe see if the parents might chip in some money for the kids to go or even go along as extra chaperones. But that means giving up your time and running the risk of liability for your students yourself. If it worked out well, it would be proof to the school board that we have the ability to handle something like this. Are you sure you want to take this on?"

"Yeah, I am sure. They are a bunch of really good kids and my class listens to me better than a lot of the other classes do." Heather said earnestly.

"Billy Thompsen is in your class right?" Emily looked directly at Heather as she said it. Heather nodded affirmation.

"His dad is on the school board and his mom is really active in the school. She would be a good person to get in touch with to get this started." Emily continued as Heather nodded excitedly.

"And, Heather, you know if you need an extra driver or some other help let me know and I'll be there. I might be able to help with some of the expense out of my savings if we can't pull it off any other way." Emily went on.

"Oh, that's ok, Emily," said Heather. "You just helping me see it from a different perspective made a difference. Besides, isn't Roger going to be here this weekend?"

"Yeah, he's supposed to unless something comes up, but this is something he would enjoy. He has a couple of nephews that age that he is really good with. He would say it's practice for being a teacher's husband," Emily smiled.

"Or your own!!" Heather shot back with a laugh as she headed to the phone to start her quest.

They got it done, too. Roger had ended up having a final to study for so he didn't make it back and nothing was as organized as what it could have been, but it was a good start. Everyone had a great time. They couldn't get one of the school buses so they ended up having to shuttle the kids in three or four vehicles, one of which was Emily's. Heather was in her element. Mrs. Thompsen was able to go along with Billy and advised them on how to approach the school board when they stopped at the McDonald's in New Bern.

Emily remembered a lot about E.J. that day. His and Johnston's war stories and their faith in the American Constitution and the push they had to do the things they believed in .

E.J. had been in the service with Old Man Hampstead, the town survivalist, and would talk about how the war had changed him from a popular extrovert into a paranoid recluse. Jack had started to be ruled by fear, and E.J. always claimed that courage was not the absence of fear but the ability to rise above it.

The Hampstead family had been pretty well off before the war but then the hard times had hit and they had lost everything. Jack might have come through it ok, he got back with no physical scars, but the emotional wounds he never recovered from. He stopped valuing people and resented what he no longer had. He saved every dime he could and started believing everybody was out to take him and the world would end any second. First it was Y2K, then it was the economy. He pushed away the people who cared about him and tried to help him. He pushed away the person who loved him because he was afraid she would leave him eventually instead of trying to make a life with her and trusting the future.

E.J. would often pull out the tattered copy of _The Prophet _that he had carried overseas with him. It was sad really how Emily had never taken the time to read all the way through such a small book until she was in college though there were parts she could still could hear his soft baritone quote from memory. He used to laugh that his wife had always said he had carried it for the dirty pictures but it had gone all the way through the war with him.

_. . . . . ._

_It is when you give of yourself that you truly give._

_For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?_

_And to-morrow, what shall to-morrow bring to the over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?_

_And what is fear of need but need itself?_

_Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?_

_There are those who give little of the much which they have--and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome. _

_And there are those who have little and give it all. _

_These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. _

_There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. _

_And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism._

_And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;_

_They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into the space. _

_Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth. _

_. . . . . ._

_Khalil Gibran, "__On Giving," __The Prophet_

E.J. would look at both her and Jake and shake his head sadly. "You have to have faith. You don't need a million dollars or the newest gadgets. Sometimes you don't see how something can work but you just have to set out believing it will. When you stick that foot out into the abyss you have to set it down absolutely knowing that there is something greater that will make sure you find solid ground under it. Pretty speeches don't mean anything - it's the doing that counts. Those drives you feel to do something… if they come from love and not pride, that's the voice of God telling you what you need to do. It may be as simple as making sure a young soldier who is leaving for overseas can count on you to get his mother her car keys or a young lady refusing to give up her seat on a bus. It can be as great as the voice Martin Luther King, Jr. heard when he started organizing against segregation. In the process of equalizing schools he may have destroyed the small country schoolhouses that often held a community together but he made sure that everybody had an opportunity at the same education. Every person in this world adds something to it, even the merry grasshoppers who sing and dance . Even this grasshopper." He would waggle his eyebrows at them as they laughed. "The most important thing is to love your neighbor as yourself and do unto him as you would want him to do unto you. Not necessarily what he would do unto you. War is only glamorous to those who have never fought in one. Believe me, I did. Now there are people who try to deny the Holocaust ever happened and I saw it. Fear and an attempt at security caused that. Gandhi understood that when he changed the face of India without firing a shot. No matter how strong a cord is, a rope twined from three or four strands will triple its strength. It just takes one person to start a revolution, but it takes a community to finish it."

"How can you talk about God, E.J.? You don't even go to church!" demanded Emily. Gail had always complained about him when he refused to get up on Sunday.

"I refuse to tolerate the limitations they put on Him, Em." E.J. confided. "The church wants to saddle him up and ride him but he doesn't exist only within those walls. He doesn't even exist in one religion - he is in each and every person and our job is to try to defend that part of him that is in your neighbor. He is there in the Jewish people and he even exists inside those idiots who are causing the trouble in the Middle East. I believe in Him - I just don't believe in organizations that try to tell me it is us against them, and they always work that in there somewhere. They always have the answer for what you need to do. I get mad when somebody tells me they are so much wiser than me and I just need to shut up and listen to them and do as they say… won't happen in this life." He pursed his lips as he shook his head emphatically.

That particular speech had ended in a rendition of Randy Travis's _Point of Light_, sung only half jokingly. A lot of people had never seen past E.J.'s act of the drunken fool, but there had been a sharp old man there who was dealing with his own pain in a different way than Jack Hampstead.

Thoughts of E.J. led her to her favorite one of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. His life had been filled with incredible circumstances that centered simply on his blind push to move forward. He had been another one who had refused to accept limitations and in later life had often given the performance of a drunken buffoon to hide the sharp mind behind that exterior. He was left with a child from a tryst while he was 22, raising the boy in his father's house, then when he was 24 he set up housekeeping with his childhood sweetheart. She was a married woman whose husband had disappeared. They didn't have divorces in those days except under special circumstances, but Ben and Deborah had not allowed the fact that she was already married to stand in their way.

As a child in today's society they would have probably put Ben on Ritalin to control his enormous energy. Emily felt her job as a teacher was to try to find those kids with that type of mental energy and find a way to direct them that would help them learn, another thing she and Heather agreed on. In the old days they had hard physical labor that gave them an outlet, but in order to stay safe today parents wanted their children to sit quietly with a video game.

Ben had been the kind of person who had stood outside that society to follow his heart, they had often humiliated him but he had kept his head up and followed where that voice called him even though it lead to a long absence from his wife and his country while he was overseas in England. He had been one strand of many who had twined together to create this great country. Emily knew the foundations and bone structure that they had put in place was still there waiting if they needed them. Heather and Emily were trying once again to weave that communal cloth with their students That weaving consisted of teaching her students tolerance and respect, how to know and care about each other. Building relationships among the students and teaching them to work together was as important as learning how to spell correctly, excursions like the field trips helped with that. They were working to make sure nobody felt left out and understood that everybody had something to offer. Trying to teach the students how to make positive differences, how to stand up for what you believe in and not sit back and complain.

History starts now - at whatever point and wherever you find yourself. You just have to make the decision to stand up and do what you can to help no matter how small it may seem at the time. Heather and Emily were doing what they could with what they had and hopefully, in the long run, it would be a positive contribution to the history of Jericho……

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**Notes from writing:**

I found the book _The Prophet _when my daughter was a teenager. It was written back in the '30s by an immigrant from Lebanon. My personal favorite has always been _On Children_. A scrap of that was what drew me to the book in the first place, it is really hard to have your teenage daughter yell it back at you, though. I was utterly flabbergasted when in "Walk the Line," June Carter gave Johnny Cash a copy of this book. It had no title, I only believe that was the book because I recognized Gibran's self portrait on the cover, Gibran was both an artist and an author. I would sincerely like to know if that actually happened, I can see a poor share cropper's son finding a lot of peace in that book. The entire copy of that book exists on line if you look for it.

_**Addendum: **__I just googled: __**Johnny Cash Gibran**__. June Carter did give that book to him before they married and he ultimately narrated it for an audio book. I WANT it!! _


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